Healing Hands - A DCC Spell for Wizards

Dungeons and Dragons, Dungeon Crawl Classics and most other systems that follow in (A)DnD's footsteps have a strong cut between arcane and divine magic. For most players, especially early on, the biggest difference will be:"wizards can't heal. Clerics can". 

Arcane healing has been a stable of fantasy literature, but is still amiss in many of my favorite role playing games. While there are many good reasons to keep wizards from healing their allies, i have changed this for my DCC games. I wanted to give the wizard a way of healing his comrades and reworked the lay on hands ability from the cleric into a level 1 spell. Go have a look at

Healing Touch

The Reasoning behind this is quite simple. I am not fond of the game feel the cleric provides. Healing is too easy and i strongly dislike how most Fantasy games deal with the restoration of hit points. This version of lay on hands discourages wizards from constantly healing their allies up to max hp and the fear of loosing the spell makes it more of a helpful tool and less of a character defining core ability

I don't want to go too deep into the details of why i dislike the clerical healing ability in it's current state. It has been in so many games and there is a good reason. It's not objectively bad, just not befitting of my personal taste. Yes. There are changes to lay on hands. The alignment reliability is gone and it gets worse with every attempt. Those are all intentional designs to better fit a more scholarly approach to healing spells.

So the final question is: "who will be interested in such a spell?". Not everyone likes the cleric and the concept of divine magic. I can't recall which episode of Spellburn discussed this topic, but a suggestion was to drop the cleric class in it's entirety and treat gods as patrons. This spell makes it easier to adapt this kind of play.

I am in the process of completely reworking my current campaign setting for DCC and i want to get rid of clerics in the process and replace them with a completely new class. Both, the rework and the class will soon make their way to this blog. Roleplaying currently takes a backseat. While i run many convention games i am not playing much within my home group. 

Not fantasy wise at least. I recently started a semi-open Traveller campaign for my local gaming meet up and am in the preparation for running the dark of hot spring island. Not sure if any of those will find their way onto this blog. 

Furthermore i got back into tabletop gaming within the last half year. I just love the system and setting of infinity and starting over with it has been a blast. This blog has never been designed to be a exclusive DCC or role playing blog, so maybe some things will find their way here. But i will keep to the style of this blog and won't post any pictures of miniatures. Maybe scenarios or the rule set i work on for a upcoming campaign (that might or might not happen). If you like miniatures though, check out A butterfly's hobby tally. This blog belongs to a close friend of mine who is one of my infinity colleagues and has been roleplaying with me since more than ten years ago.

This post has kind of dissolved into banter, but don't worry. I won't post until i have something to show for it.

A Curious Year - First Anniversary

It's been a year since i opened the gates of this small hobby project of mine. I started this blog to put some of my ideas out there. To have an outlet for creative bursts and hobby projects. Today i want to take a look at what i created and what will come this year.

But first. At new years eve i posted two new dungeon maps of mine. These curious dungeons, unlike their brethren, came not fully written out, but were only presented as bare maps. I want to change that. Here is the third curious Dungeon "The Gates of Idron"

[Note - I have not yet finished the write up, as i am stuck with other work. I will definitely finish it over the weekend and this note will be replaced by the full dungeon]

Now it's time to look back at some of my posts, series and what i have done here.

When i started this project i had some ideas but nothing to concrete. My first post was nothing more than a simple introduction to Dungeon Crawl Classics, a game which i dearly enjoy. This blog was never planned to be a DCC/OSR Thing, but all my previous posts definitely fit that description. It was no odd occurrence either, as most of my gaming through the last year fits that description. 

My second post still sits among my most popular and, to this day, remains one of my favorite creations i ever made. Rolling through Regions provides a simple to use random region generation toll. I created it on the fly back then and only slightly adjusted it after a few rounds of testing. This was not planned as a one of post but as something i still plan on making more of. Expect to see at least one post similar to this one soon. I have some ideas for a card based City generator and a dice based dungeon generator. There will be more!

My next posts were about Thireila, my DCC home Setting. They are among my most unpopular posts and among the posts i care least about. I did not think the setting through to the point of presenting it, when i first wrote those posts. But i still care about the Setting and have twisted it quite a lot since it's first inception. A lot of reworking the setting has been done and will be applied to the blog over the following moths. Once i feel comfortable with it i will give the Setting a new start and present it as something more than just a generic DCC/Fantasy backdrop.

My most popular post was the fully written DCC Funnel "Fate of the Ruthless Wizard". The feedback and exposure this one got me was huge and i am quite proud of it. The day Bryce reviewed this adventure not only meant a flood of new viewers, but also provided me with some well needed and well deserved critique. My decision to write more adventures was born that day and i have so many ideas floating around that it becomes hard to know which to write out first. But doing something like this takes huge amounts of time. And time is a resource i am starving for. I can promise you that i'll write at leas one big free adventure this year. But i can't promise when. I have begun working on something winter themed so i hope it will find a release date where it's not only thematic in Australia. 

Now let's drop some words on the Curious Dungeons. After i made my first DCC Adventure i noticed that drawing maps was quite fun and began doing more of it. I also became interested in game design from a more old-school perspective so i decided to just post what i drew. And the response was huge. Especially the, soon to be defunct, G+ Library of Gaming Maps provided tons of positive feedback to my first curious dungeon. I really don't think that my drawing skills are that great or that i am a designer who can call himself more than decent, but putting out these always makes a lot of fun. 

If i had one wish for the coming years than it would be to see some people take my maps and turn them into adventures or fill them with life in their own way. If you did something like this please let me know. I am most curious to find out what some small map can spark in you!

There is only one series left to talk about and that would be "A curious look". I don't want to call this a review series, or myself a reviewer, but the general idea was to take a look at some creations that exist and provide some opinions on them. I think that people who post things for free don't get enough feedback and while i didn't do my best of providing constructive positive feedback it is what i am aiming for if i ever do another in this series. And the Gongfarmers community provided me with enough of a response to this post to make me think, that I'm not the only one with this opinion.

I also want to look at some commercial publications from a design perspective. Not telling you that it's good, but why. I have a huge article planned for Harley Strohs "Doom of the Savage Kings" - DCC Aventure, but i am still struggling at condensing it down to an article that's not wasting your time.

Everything else i did were minor posts. DCC House rules, new Character Classes or other random tables and stuff. I am quite proud of most of those and happy about the response i got. But there is no series. I can't predict whats coming up in this regard. Only time will tell what stupid things i come up with.

So what's to say in the end? 2018 was not the best of years. Neither for this world, nor for me personally. But it was a great year for tabletop gaming and starting this blog was a great idea and sparked a lot of ideas as well as providing me with the motivation to follow through. 

There are many other RPG Blogs out there with more, bigger or better content. Most have more regular uploads as well. I'd lie if I'd claim not to be jealous of their creativity and self-discipline. But i came to see that this blog is what it is. A small hobby project by a quite curious German nerd. And i don't want it to be anything else.

So far and thanks for reading.

Until Soon

Marc